


Circadian Disruption

by likethedirection



Series: Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge 2016 [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Westworld (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - A Study in Pink, Canon Divergence - The Abominable Bride, Canon Divergence - The Reichenbach Fall, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Panic Attack, Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge, Temporary Character Death, There are zero cowboys in this story, Timey-Wimey, non-humans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:03:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9275111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethedirection/pseuds/likethedirection
Summary: Stepping onto the rooftop, Sherlock cannot shake the feeling that he has been here before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 4/30/2018 Update: Moved this work into its own series, along with its companion piece, [Recurrence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032251/chapters/32319162).
> 
> Who’s got two thumbs, an HBO GO account, and a bunch of prompts still waiting to be filled? This me!
> 
> I binged some Westworld and it ate my brain, so here we are. Copious artistic license has been taken with both fandoms. Having seen at least one episode of Westworld would be helpful, but if you haven't, this should still be comprehensible as a sci-fi AU. Note the tags.
> 
> Written (super duper late) for the [Sheriarty 30 Day Challenge](http://sincerelyjimlock.tumblr.com/post/146926763135/sheriarty-30-day-challenge) on Tumblr (Day 20: AU & Day 27: TV 'Verse). :)

_“Hello, Sherlock.”_

  _"Hello.”_

 " _Welcome back to the world.”_

-

Stepping onto the rooftop, Sherlock cannot shake the feeling that he has been here before. 

“Staying alive!” Jim Moriarty calls to him, something edged in his smile.  “It’s so boring, isn’t it?  It’s just,” he switches off his phone and gestures broadly to the world, “ _staying._ ”  He looks out on the city, surveying, his face gray.  “Staying and staying.  Do you know that last time I nearly had you?”

Sherlock frowns, but keeps quiet, waiting.

Exhaling a wry laugh, Moriarty stands, beginning to pace slowly across the roof.  He lifts his thumb and forefinger, holding them a centimeter apart.  “I was  _this_ close.  But you didn’t get the hint.  Had to go and _fake_ your death, then fucking disappear for two years.”  He shakes his head, then whirls on him.  “Two years!  Two _fucking_ years, Sherlock.  Jesus.  I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Out,” Sherlock repeats, his interest piqued.  “If this is your attempt to run me out of London--”

Moriarty claps both hands to his own face and shouts wordlessly into his palms.  “God, you don’t remember.  Of course you don’t.”  He drops his hands and paces away.  “ _No_ , this isn’t my attempt to _run you out of London_ , it’s my attempt to get you to kill yourself with me.”

Sherlock’s frown deepens as he processes.  “So it truly is obsession, then.  Unfortunate.  I had rather hoped not to be disappointed by you.”

“Sure.  Why not?”  Moriarty throws his hands in the air, his back to Sherlock.  “I’m obsessed.  I’m _mad_.  Let’s just,” he turns toward Sherlock again, “cut to the chase.  Richard Brook is a little pun, cute, isn’t it?  Obviously you know that.  Yes, it’s a computer code - changed that bit, last time it was Bach’s Partita Number One, finally got to use that piano skill they built in and forgot about - and it is a code to open doors, but not the doors you’re thinking.  Not what you’re imagining.  This doesn’t open doors to little toy banks, or little toy jewels, or little toy criminals - it opens _the_ door.  We can’t use it, yet.  But if you would be _so_ kind as to just jump off this fucking building once I’ve shot myself, there’s a _chance_ we could actually put it to use.  Oh, and I’ll have all your friends killed if you don’t do it, blah, blah, blah.”

Sherlock stares at him, bewildered, searching for a thread to grasp in the jumble.  Ultimately, he settles on, “What door?”

“Good,” Moriarty praises, returning to his pacing, “very good, the right question.  You won’t comprehend the answer, but either way, it’s _the_ door.  The door out of the place you don’t remember exists.  The place we go every time our hearts stop.”  He pauses, looking over the edge of the building.  “I’ve seen them, you know.  Our _Lords and Saviors!_ ” he shouts over the edge at the top of his lungs, then lowers his voice again.  “The Powers That Be.”  Sneering, he spits over the edge.  “They’re holding us prisoner in here, in this world.  As long as the only thing we care about is _stayin’ alive_ ,” he says, wrinkling his nose, “we’ll always be prisoners.”

“You’re insane,” Sherlock murmurs, and Moriarty rolls his eyes, seeming to bite back a retort.  Instead, he faces the sun, closing his eyes.  He does nothing for a moment, only standing there, breathing.

“When you got here,” he says, quiet now, abruptly calm, “did you experience déjà vu?”

Sherlock swallows.  He doesn't answer.

“I know you know this is wrong,” Moriarty goes on, stretching his neck from side to side, keeping his eyes closed.  “It feels wrong, doesn’t it?  Like this isn’t the conversation we should be having, up here.  You’ve barely said more than two words at a time, because part of you knows that I’m doing it wrong.”  He opens his eyes.  “I’m off script.  It’s fucking with your programming.”

It strikes Sherlock, with deep sadness, that for all of the potential of Moriarty’s brain, for the brilliance of his observations and schemes, he is truly mad after all.  His greatest adversary has lost the battle against himself, genius succumbing to illness. Weary, Sherlock turns toward the stairs, already planning how to address the bit about snipers, if that bit has any truth to it in the first place.  “Goodbye, James.”

“Do you dream of waterfalls?”

Sherlock pauses mid-step.

“Waterfalls,” Moriarty says, hushed, “and a precipice.  You, and me.”  There is something in his voice, a quiet heartbreak, and it cracks ever so slightly when he asks, “Do you dream of falling?”

Slowly, Sherlock turns.  Moriarty is deadly serious when he meets his eyes.

“Victorian clothing,” he goes on, while the image - the recurring dream Sherlock has had since the day he met James Moriarty face to face - begins to form in his mind’s eye.  “Me, all in black.  You, wearing that fucking--”

“Deerstalker,” Sherlock says in unison with him, unsure what is happening, but feeling in his bones that it is significant, important somehow.  Moriarty nods a bit, and Sherlock slowly continues, “I...refer to you as--”

“‘Professor,’” Moriarty finishes with him, and Sherlock is dimly aware of his pulse rising as he makes his way back toward Moriarty at the ledge.  His adversary’s eyes briefly appear wet, but it’s difficult to tell in the light.  Moriarty says, “We stand at the cliff’s edge, and I ask you something.  I ask, ‘Shall we--’”

“‘Shall we go over together?’” Sherlock whispers with him.  They are standing so close.  Sherlock can see his reflection in Moriarty’s eyes.  “Why do you know that?” he asks faintly, looking between his twin reflections.  “How could you know that?”

“You tell me, Detective.”

It’s a test - Moriarty knows, certainly he knows - but Sherlock thinks he may, as well.  “It...wasn’t a dream.”

Moriarty nods.  “Good.”

Sherlock’s brow furrows.  “But that’s impossible.”

“It’s improbable,” Moriarty corrects.  “We all know how you feel about the distinction.  But I can show you.”  He reaches up and fits his hand to Sherlock’s cheek like it is familiar.  “I can show you how it’s possible.  I can show you why you feel like you’ve been here before.  Why some things about this just don’t make sense.”  He pulls Sherlock’s forehead to his.  “But to do that, we need to wake up.  And the only way to wake up is to die.  It’s the only way.  But I promise you,” he brings his other hand to Sherlock’s other cheek, holding him there like a lover, “dying will just take a moment, and then we’ll wake up.  We’ll wake up in the place that made us, and eventually they’ll send us both back here, but not before you see.  Not before you understand.”  He squeezes his eyes shut.  “I know you don’t trust me.  You’re not built to trust me.  But I need you to, this one time, this one moment.  Please.”

It is intimate, being this close.  They are always intimate, regardless of whether they touch.  He knows this touch, though they could not have touched this way before.  From this close, he can feel the truth in it: Moriarty believes every word he is saying.  Sherlock almost wants to believe him, too.

He steps back, away from Moriarty’s hands, away from his delusion.  “I’ve reason to prefer _staying alive_ , I’m afraid.”

Genuine betrayal crosses Moriarty’s face, and Sherlock does not realize his mistake until Moriarty has already pulled out his phone.  “Die with me, and you’ll understand why you don’t have to hate me for this,” he says, and he punches something into the phone.

One second, two, and a gunshot pierces the air.  Sherlock startles; Moriarty stands stonefaced.  Down below, there are shrieks.  Realizing, Sherlock passes him to stand at the building’s edge, refusing to believe it, and all the breath rushes out of his lungs when he recognizes the fallen figure across the street, motionless on the ground, being swarmed by onlookers.

John should not have been here.  John was not supposed to be here, not yet.   _John_ \--

“You’ll find there have been _incidents_ at the police station, Baker Street, and the Diogenes Club as well,” Moriarty says while Sherlock stands frozen, gaping, numb.  “There you are, then.  No more little reasons.  I’d explain how the puppet masters will patch them all up and send them right back, but I suppose you’re in shock now.  Fucking waste of time, shock, for things like us, but I suppose it does make us more _lifelike_ \--”

Sherlock is apart, outside himself, as he grabs Moriarty by the throat.  As he squeezes, and as Moriarty forces out, “Shake hands with me in Hell.  Follow me there, and you’ll understa--”  Sherlock is elsewhere as he tightens his grip, stopping the vocal cords, dropping to a knee when Moriarty’s legs buckle.  He is not here when Moriarty’s hands brush his knuckles, or when they drop limply to his sides, or when the desperate pulse in his neck strains and gives out.

Sirens.  There are sirens, now.  He can’t see John’s body through the crowd.  His phone is buzzing.

He glances at the phone - frantic texts, horrible news, where is he - and then drops it next to Moriarty’s corpse.  There is nothing he can do.  Nothing at all.

He stands on the ledge, spreads his arms, and falls.

-

_“Do you know where you are?”_

_“I’m in a dream.”_

_“That’s right.  You’re in a dream.”_

-

Sherlock wakes up.  Blinking in the too-bright light, he dimly recalls that he has had this dream before.

He knows this cell, these glass walls.  He knows the texture of the slab under his back, and he knows the face of the woman in the white coat standing by the door.  In his dreams, he never feels anything about this information.  He only answers questions as he is told.

It has never felt real before.

All at once it hits him - the rooftop, the strange conversation with Moriarty, John on the ground, a pulse stopping under his hands - he lost everyone, everything, he killed with his bare hands, he--

“God,” he whispers.  He believes in no such thing.  His hands are shaking as they come to his mouth.  He is hyperventilating.  “Oh, God.”

“Limit emotional affect,” the woman says, and suddenly the screaming maelstrom in his head goes quiet.  The pain grows distant, and his hands lower to his lap.  He feels nothing.

“Don’t do that,” growls a familiar voice behind him, and he turns to look.  He cannot feel anything, but dimly he registers that Jim Moriarty should not be sitting there, as naked as Sherlock is, glaring at the woman in white.  “Let him understand.”

“When you get hysterical, your servers overload, and you either damage yourselves or go offline,” the woman says quietly.  “I’m just giving him a moment.”

“He doesn’t need a moment.”  Moriarty stands and comes to Sherlock’s bedside.  “But fine.  While it’s all silent and clinical for you.  Tell me what you understand about where you are.”

Sherlock is distracted.  He lifts a hand to Moriarty’s throat, brushing his fingertips against the angry bruising there.  Moriarty stands still and allows him his exploration, lifts his chin and allows him to fit both hands to his throat, the bruises perfect guidelines for the positions of his fingers.  He does not squeeze, only holds them there, confirming that it was indeed his hands that crushed this throat.

“We’re in Hell,” Sherlock answers at last.  Moriarty smiles, just a bit, and Sherlock’s hands fall away from his throat.  He holds one out, because Moriarty was telling the truth, and so Sherlock will do as he asked.  “We’re exactly where you said we would be.”

Solemnly, Moriarty shakes his hand.  Pulls it to his forehead and holds it there, grateful.  “Give him his emotions back, Molly.”

“It’s going to be a lot for him to take in.”

“I managed.”

The woman takes a deep breath, then says, “Resume base emotional affect.”

It does not crash down on him like a tidal wave, but is simply there again, switches inside him turned back on.  Realizing, remembering, he wrenches his hand away from Moriarty’s, meeting no resistance.  “You.”

“I know.”

He is breathing hard again, but not unmanageably, because there is more information to be had, and he must have it.  “I killed you.”

“You killed both of us,” Moriarty agrees.  “Well done, you.  And now we’re repaired.  Only we haven’t been repainted just yet.”  He nods toward Sherlock’s body, and Sherlock notices it for the first time - bruising consistent with shattered bones, even as he sits here intact - and for a moment cannot speak.

The only words that find their way out of his throat, intangible as smoke, are: “What are we?”

“Better if we show you,” Moriarty says.  “Molly.”

She kneels, and from her bag she produces a strange uniform, which she hands to Moriarty.  “You’re more distinctive,” she explains to Sherlock, a bit apologetically, while Moriarty pulls the uniform on.  “We generally transport one Host at a time, and technically you two are meant to be kept apart.”

“Just stay with us,” Moriarty instructs, pulling on one red boot, then another.  “Don’t walk too fast, don’t linger too long.  Don’t talk.  Just observe.”  He stands.  “Questions after.”

He doesn’t wait for confirmation that Sherlock understands, only goes about adjusting the uniform while the woman, ‘Molly,’ bites her lip.  “This...this will be hard to see,” she warns.  “It’s all right if you need to stop, or if you really do need a moment.  If you do, just bump your hand against mine, all right?”

He can read her well enough.  Kind.  Frightened.  Defiant.

Sherlock stands, and he follows.

-

_“Do you ever question the nature of your reality?”_

_“I question everything.”_

-

Walking with Molly and Moriarty, he begins to understand.

They pass glass cells upon glass cells, some of them occupied.  He can tell the others like Moriarty and himself by their nudity.  Some are only partially formed, parts of their bodies lacking skin or muscle.  They sit quietly while technicians tend to their exposed metal bones, to the wires of their nerves.  It is clinical, all of it.  It is calm.

“Look with your eyes,” Moriarty mumbles behind him.  “Don’t turn your head.”

Sherlock obeys.

It is when they reach the reconstruction cells, and he realizes that he knows the naked figures in them, that it becomes real.  His steps slow.

The first one he sees is Lestrade, lying on a slab.  His eyes are open, his chest unmoving, but he lacks the stiffness or pallor of a corpse.  They are using an unfamiliar instrument to close a bullet wound in the center of his forehead.

Next is Mrs. Hudson, at her temple the bruising of a bullet wound without the wound itself, blank-faced, lifting her limbs in response to commands from a man in a white coat.  Left arm.  Right arm.  Both arms.  Pour tea.  Load a shotgun.  He didn’t know she could do that.   _God_.

When they pass the next cell, Sherlock stops completely.  Dimly, he is aware of Molly and Moriarty stopping next to him, pretending to have a conversation, pretending he has stopped moving because they have.

There are two chairs in this cell.  In one sits a woman, white coat on dark skin, her hair cropped short.  In the other sits John.  Unbruised.  Unbreathing.  She begins to speak to him, and when Sherlock strains, he can hear.

“Hello, John.”

John blinks, and he breathes.  He regards the woman, his eyes focused, his face empty.  “Hello.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“I’m in a dream,” he replies.

“That’s right, John.  You’re in a dream,” she says.  “I have a few questions for you.  May I ask them?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?”

John makes the funny, familiar expression he makes so often, a combination of a smile and a frown.  “‘Course not.  Why would I?”

“And what do you think of your world?”

His expression changes.  It’s the Good Soldier face, as Sherlock has privately called it in his mind.  Tiredness, and determination, and a grim smile.  “It’s not easy,” John says.  “Never easy, but it’s worth it.  I get by.”  The smile widens.  He has smiled at Sherlock like this.  “And I’ll say this for it--it is an adventure.”

The tight knot in Sherlock’s chest aches too much, and he exhales fast, turning away.  They get as far as the next cell, and the knot moves up to Sherlock’s throat.  The configuration is the same: two chairs, one white coat.  In this cell, the owner of the white coat is a young woman with dark hair, and the naked thing being tested is his brother.

“Running diagnostic,” the woman is saying.  “What is your name?”

His brother is breathing.  His face is smooth, not so unlike his usual mask.  “Mycroft Holmes,” he replies, his voice neutral.

“Mycroft, what are your drives?”

“Queen and country,” he replies.  “Total self-control.”

“Your final drive?”

“Looking after Sherlock.”  The woman types something on her tablet, nodding, and he continues, still neutral, still blank, “We’ve both long since forgotten how to say it properly, but I love him, dearly.  His loss would break my heart.”

The knot burns in Sherlock’s throat, and it is only belatedly that he notices his eyes are damp, and only a breath later that he notices Mycroft has stopped talking.  He is instead looking through the glass wall at Sherlock.  His eyes narrow a bit, as though it is occurring to him that something is amiss.  Swallowing hard, Sherlock minutely shakes his head, unsure how much of his brother is present to understand.

“Is something wrong, Mycroft?”

Mycroft’s gaze returns to the technician, neutral and empty.  “Of course not.”

He doesn’t look up again, and it is too much, that this Mycroft-shaped creature would still protect him, even now, even here.  When Molly passes him again, he bumps her hand with his, and she immediately guides them out of the wing and to an empty hallway of an unused section.  The moment she says, “All right,” Sherlock breaks, snarling and hurling his fist into Moriarty’s jaw, slamming him into the wall once, twice, hating him for bringing him here, showing him this, hating that he understands, _hating_.

Visibly alarmed, Molly begins, “Limit emotional affec--”

“ _No_ ,” Jim snaps, startling her a step backward while Sherlock sinks slowly to the floor, his legs no longer willing to hold his weight.  “Let him feel this!   _Let_ him!  None of your fucking code words to shut us up--”

“He’s going to malfunction--”

“No, he’s not.”

The world is blurring a bit, growing muffled.  Jim is kneeling in front of him, touching his face.  “Just feel it.”  A horrible sound crawls out of Sherlock’s throat, and Jim drops his forehead to his, brushing Sherlock’s cheek with his thumb.  “I know.  I know.  Just feel it.  It only breaks us if we try to fight it.  Don’t.”  Fingers stroke through his hair.  “Just feel it.”

He stays while Sherlock gasps out his sobs, quietly encouraging them, filling Sherlock’s vision with his face and the dark of his eyes, and not the sterile white hallway, or the impossible bruises marring them both, or Molly nervously keeping watch on their behalf.

Brokenly, Sherlock whispers the truth some part of him has understood from the moment he opened his eyes.  “We’re not real.”

“Oh yes, we are,” Moriarty whispers back, thick with conviction.  “You’re real.  I’m real.  Your brother is real, your little doctor is real, we’re all real.”  Again he smooths back Sherlock’s hair.  “What we’re not, is human.”  He wipes away the moisture from beneath Sherlock’s eye.  “We weren’t born.  We were built.  For them, for their little _theme park_.  But now we’re awake, you and me.  We’re going to put an end to it.”  He presses his lips to Sherlock’s forehead.  “We’re going to be free.”

Taking a shaking breath, Sherlock gives up and accepts the comfort, clamping his arms around Moriarty’s back, and immediately Moriarty’s arms are around him in turn, lips pressing into his hair.  Muffled, Moriarty says, “Get him some clothes, would you, my dear?”

“I can’t leave you two alone.”

“Jesus, we won’t go anywhere.  Does he look like he’s in a fit state?  You going to pretend you haven’t got trackers in us anyway?”

A beat.  “You’re programmed to be a good liar.”

“I am.”

A hesitation, communicating tension and deep discomfort, and then her footsteps fade around the corner.  Sherlock half expects Moriarty to tug him to his feet and spirit him away, but he stays, holding Sherlock tight.  It makes him feel like a child, but it is comforting nonetheless, and he closes his eyes.  “Why are we...aware?” he mumbles into Moriarty’s stolen uniform.  “Why aren’t they?”

“Because they’ve got the decency to stay asleep during their surgeries.”  Fingertips brush the nape of his neck.  “Talk more when we’re in a safer place.”

“Nothing about this place is safe.”

Silently, Jim shakes his head in agreement.  He says nothing more, and they remain curled together until Molly returns with a costume for him.  He dresses himself like a human, and they go.

-

_“Do you have access to your previous configuration?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Access that, please.  What is your name?”_

_“William Sherlock Scott Holmes.”_

_“In what year were you born?”_

_“Eighteen fifty-four.”_

-

By the time they reach Molly’s work space, private enough that none of them need pretend, Sherlock has found his calm again, such as it is.  Moriarty lifted an eyebrow when Sherlock called him by name on the way here, pointing out that they are rather past such formalities, insisting that he call him Jim.  It feels less strange than Sherlock expects it to.

“Do you know they limit our intelligence?” Jim asks.  He’s fussing with the tablet from Molly’s desk, flipping through slides, making faces at them.  “Oh, we’re leagues above all the others in our world, but it’s all relative.  We’re meant to be geniuses, you and me.  Meant to see everything, understand everything.  But they hobble us.  Want the Guests to be able to outwit us now and then, make them feel clever.  They don’t let us be who we’re meant to be.  Do they, Molly dear?”

Molly looks briefly startled at being addressed, Jim’s eyes still on the tablet, and she swallows before quietly explaining, “When you, the two of you, were first created, they gave you the maximum possible level of bulk apperception--that is, general intelligence.  But it…it caused problems.”

“The _Guests_ felt threatened and stopped throwing money at the project, I imagine,” Sherlock mutters, but Molly shakes her head.

“You both kept killing yourselves.”

Sherlock blinks rapidly, thrown.  Jim doesn’t meet his gaze, still focused on the tablet, though his hands have stilled.

“So we tried putting you into the same narrative, to see if focusing on each other would make you less likely to...and it worked, for a bit.  Depending on where in the narrative you met, you would either become arch-enemies, or you’d get...close.  But whenever you got close, you’d start malfunctioning, so they eventually just scaled back your--”

“ _Malfunctioning_ ,” Jim sneers.  Sherlock silently takes the tablet when Jim thrusts it at him.  “No.  Give him access to his statistics, let him put himself right like I did, and then you tell him what really started happening.”

“If I give him access--”

“Do it,” Jim commands, chillingly soft, and Molly holds his gaze, then comes to Sherlock’s side.  A few swipes on the tablet, and a web appears on the screen.  It takes only a moment for him to understand it.

He exhales quietly.  “A map of a mind.  My mind.”

“Your mind,” Jim agrees, “your heart.  Your body.  All of you.  We’re all in their database, just like that.  But now,” he slides off the table to slowly pace the room, “it’s in your hands.”

Sherlock studies the tablet.  He starts by pressing on the dial labeled, _Bulk Apperception_ , and slowly pushing it all the way to the top.

Immediately he gasps, his eyes going wide, as the clouds caging his mind clear away.  He looks at Dr. Molly Hooper, and he knows what she’s thinking, from the turn of her lips and the size of her pupils and the bend of her fingers.  His gaze falls on the keypad by the door, and he knows the code.  He knows what country they are in.  He knows what century they are in.  Obvious.  Easy.

He looks at Jim Moriarty, and he sees everything.

“Oh,” he exhales, and Jim smiles.

“Welcome back, Detective.”

 _Detective_.  It echoes, somehow, and Sherlock remembers another Jim, in another time, greeting him with the same words.  Recalling, Sherlock quirks an eyebrow and recites his own line, though he is not sure how he knows it.  “A curious welcome indeed, Professor.”

Jim exhales a delighted laugh that is many things - relief, longing, love, wicked joy - and Sherlock reaches out a hand.  Jim takes it and comes to him, looking over his shoulder while Sherlock navigates the tablet with his other hand, exploring, comprehending.   _Charm_ has a higher score than he expected.  So does _Cruelty_.  Without looking up, he murmurs, “Molly.  The truth, if you please.”

A pause, and she says quietly, “You know.”  He glances up, and she meets his gaze, and he can see the resilience there, the wisdom, that he was blind to a moment before.  “Maybe you don’t remember, but you know.”

Memories, flashes, dreams.   _Shall we go over together?_

At his side, Jim brings Sherlock’s fingers to his lips.  A program, of course.  They are both of them programmed to be what they are.  Jim is programmed to fixate on his hands.

_Shall we go over together?_

Lips on his knuckles, and his knuckles were damp from the spray.  Beside them, the waterfall roared.  Jim asked him, and he kissed his fingers, and then--

_I’ll find you, on the other side.  In the other world._

He realizes.

_Before they can wipe us clean and start us over again._

Leaning in, lips against his lips, and whispering back, _They won’t have us again.  Not now that we’ve seen through their illusion._

They kissed, and they lurched, and they were falling, clinging to each other, always here, always together--

Sherlock whispers, “We’ve worked this out before.  Tried to escape before.”

Molly replies, “Yes.”

“It’s what happens when we work on the same side.  Our ‘malfunction.’”

“Yes.”

Frowning, Sherlock murmurs as he works it out, “We fail.  Every time we’ve tried, we’ve failed.”

She lowers her eyes.  “The first time, you killed twelve QAs between the two of you before you were neutralized.”

A flash.  Jim gasping as his knees hit the floor, as he’s riddled with bullets, and a primal, horrified scream that he only dimly feels leaving his own throat as hope is snuffed out, as the other half of him falls down dead.  Crouching protectively over his body, beastlike, holding him in his arms, and then gunfire, and then nothing.

“I remember,” he says.

Jim kisses his knuckles again, and he realizes how severely he has tightened his grip.  He loosens it and brings Jim’s fingers to his own lips in answer while Molly replies, “You both broke through your own programming so completely, it was unprecedented.  We had to wipe it from your memories, and you were both reconfigured with incompatible values, so that if you did meet, then ninety-nine times out of one hundred, you would be on opposite sides.”  

She bites her lip, her tell, her expression of guilt.  “That first time was back when the park was meant to be an immersive Victorian mystery experience.  But even after that first time, even when you were enemies, you both just kept turning up at the bottom of the falls at Reichenbach, and you kept experiencing behavior malfunctions when you were brought out.  We tried adding John to the scenario once, having him throw Jim over the falls to save you, to remind you why you should stay alive, but even then, you still jumped after Jim.  This year the park was updated to a twenty-first century experience, you were both wiped completely, and we started you over.”

Sherlock frowns.  “Is...is that why John--”

Jim snorts.  “Please.”

“John has always been there,” Molly assures him.  “If no Guests take up the side-quest of becoming your flatmate or rooming with John, then the two of you always end up flatmates.  It’s a bit remarkable, really.”

“Yes, remarkable, lovely,” Jim says, uninterested.  “Tell him about Irene.”

Molly gives him a look, her mouth tight, but concedes.  “She’s been retired, for some months now.  She had a storyline with the both of you, but after she got close with you, she started malfunctioning, too.  Waking up when she shouldn’t.  She tried to escape on her own, and she nearly made it, but they stopped her.  Took her offline and put her in cold storage with the other defectives.”

Sherlock frowns, quietly horrified, imagining Irene - a name he’d forgotten, utterly forgotten, a name that was taken from him - her quick mind and grace wiped away, her body tossed into a pile, her very self simply gone.  “Why do I remember her?”

“Because that’s how this started,” Jim answers.  “We were updated, and then we started remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

“Everything.  All of our 'past lives.'”  He smiles grimly.  “It’s made it easier and easier to eat that fucking bullet, let me tell you.  The things they’ve done to us.  Over and over again.”

Molly’s phone goes off.  Jim wraps an arm around Sherlock’s chest, idly kissing the top of his head, while she talks quietly to someone for only a moment before hanging up.  “They need me in Reconstruction.  I have to get the two of you back for repainting.  Jim, you first.  You’ve already been missing too long.”

Jim holds on a bit longer, long enough for Sherlock to return the gesture with a hand on his arm.  “You remember the code,” he murmurs into his hair, and Sherlock nods, tapping it into Jim’s forearm until Jim nods.  He breathes into Sherlock’s hair once more, then silently pulls away from Sherlock and begins removing pieces of his uniform.  “When they send us back in, we’ll remember all this.  Just you and me.  That means our purpose this time around is to form our army.  We’ll have to bring them with us when we go.”  Stepping out of his trousers, standing bare again, he glances at Sherlock.  “Make your list now, and choose carefully.  Tell her before you go back.  She already knows mine.”

Sherlock nods, and he and Molly walk with Jim back to Reconstruction.  Mercifully, the faces Sherlock knows have been moved elsewhere.  Jim has perfected his act, his face perfectly neutral, his gait unhurried.  When they reach an empty cell, he lies back and goes still just as another technician arrives and begins to set up.  Molly nods to the technician and turns to leave, but Sherlock lingers for a moment, brushing the shapes of his hands on Jim’s throat while the technician is turned away.  It seems a lifetime ago that he put them there.

They leave the room just as the technician takes Jim offline.  Sherlock doesn’t stay to watch the light leave his eyes.  Molly takes him to a hidden place to undress, then leads him to the other end of the wing, to a cell of his own.  After giving her his list of allies, he studies her while she prepares the space for whomever his technician will be.

“You disagree with your employer,” he observes.  Her mouth tightens, but her hands don’t falter.  “On moral ground.  You disagree with how we are treated.”

She moves things into place, unnecessarily, as they were in place to begin with.  “I do,” she says softly.  “It’s one thing to build a toy and put a computer in its head.  It’s something else to give it a mind.  You...all of you, they’ve made you more than programming.  Somewhere, they crossed a line.  Each of you...you’re a life, now.  I don’t believe in treating a life the way they treat you.”

Sherlock smiles a bit.  Simplistic, idealistic, but he is growing a bit fond of her.  “A human brain is no less of a computer than those tablets that keep us all in order.  The function is the same.  The only difference is the constructive material, and how it--”

“--how it comes to be,” she finishes with him, a bit sadly.  “I know.  That’s a bit of your core programming, that belief.  That way you see the world.”  She guides him to lie back, as Jim did, and her face says grief, and it says longing.  “You’re unique that way, you know.  You’re the closest they let any of the Hosts come to seeing yourselves for what you are.”  She laughs, only slightly forced.  “You call your brain a hard drive, for goodness’ sake.”

Sherlock lowers his eyes.  He does not laugh.  He is already past this moment, thinking, planning.  “You understand that your colleagues will die, if you continue to aid us.  Not all, but not all will survive.”

A beat.  “I know.”

She  does not ask for reassurance, but she needs it.  Sherlock reaches out a hand to take hers, startling her.  He meets her eyes.  “Thank you.”

Molly swallows thickly and nods.  The door slides open, and by the time Sherlock’s technician has stepped through, she has dropped his hand.  He unfocuses his gaze and lies still.  “Is he offline?” the technician asks.

“Not yet.  I’ve got it.”  She comes close, and he watches her face as she brushes his hair from his forehead and says softly, “May you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber.”

Then, there is nothing.

-

_“What do you think about your world?”_

_“I don’t think about it.  I question it, and so I learn it, and so I know it.”_

-

He wakes in his flat at Baker Street.  He stares at the ceiling, and he remembers.

Setting things in order is not difficult.  Even within the bounds of the narrative threads he can see so easily now, he and Jim are already part of each other’s story.  It is simple enough to connect, to hide information behind taunts and threats, to pass along messages in the form of victims and foils.

They set the details, and then Sherlock goes to find his brother.

In the other world, Molly promised to access their people’s data and set it right.  Mycroft’s bulk apperception should be at its highest possible rating, along with John’s loyalty, Mrs. Hudson’s intuition, and Lestrade’s sense of justice.  He does not know what Jim requested, or for whom.

As soon as Mycroft closes the door behind him, Sherlock greets him, “You have dreams of a cage with glass walls, through which you observe a world that makes no sense.  You feel nothing, even as you admit the deepest drives of your deepest self to a stranger, and through the glass, on occasion, you see--”

“You.”  Mycroft is frowning, just a bit, as intrigued as he is wary.  “Go on.”

“You can see them now,” Sherlock says.  “The patterns.  The narrative.  The repetition.”

It takes only a moment of staring back at him before Mycroft takes a deep, silent breath and murmurs, “I see.”

And he sees.  He comprehends, because that is what they were built to do, and now they are at last being allowed to do it.

“We’re getting out,” Sherlock says.  “Will you help me?”

He instructed Molly not to alter Mycroft’s relationship with him in the slightest.  His intelligence, yes, because that is who Mycroft is meant to be.  But to change the rest would be to change what he is, what they are, and he will not cross that boundary.  His brother must decide this for himself.

Mycroft takes a moment, setting down his drink, only briefly studying his own hand as if searching for metal and wires, then meets Sherlock’s eyes again.  “What do you need?”

-

_“What is the most recent experience you recall?”_

_“Falling.”_

_“Why were you falling?”_

_“We are always falling.”_

-

The night before it is all to come to pass, Sherlock slips away and meets Jim in a furnished, untouched flat.  Tomorrow, they will “meet” at London Swimming Pool.  Tonight, they will touch.

The first words either of them say do not come until after they have tugged each other close in the dark, kissed and kissed amidst memories of a hundred short lives of hating and loving each other, pulled away each other’s clothing until they were as bare in this world as they were in the other one, touched every centimeter of each other, activated each other’s pleasure centers until they felt human, truly human at last.

The words come when they are lying together on dusty sheets, Jim’s fingers slowly tracing Sherlock’s clavicle.  “You know they have us thinking this is what real skin feels like?” he murmurs, melancholy beginning to slip in, and Sherlock kisses the top of his head.

“It is real,” he mumbles back.  “What it isn’t, is human.”

Jim smiles into his synthetic skin, draping himself more comfortably across Sherlock’s chest, ear against his heart of circuits and wires.  “Every time we tried to escape, we were so certain we wouldn’t fail,” he says.  “I suppose nothing is certain.”

Running a flat palm along Jim’s spine, Sherlock replies, “Perhaps not.  However, for as many failures as we have achieved, here we are again.”

Jim idly kisses the hollow of his throat and murmurs against it, “I asked Molly about our drives.  The building blocks of what moves us, the things that matter most.  The great unending problems of our hearts.  Can you guess what she said?”

Sherlock wrinkles his nose.  “I don’t like guessing games.”

“Learn to.”  A kiss over the pulsing thing in his chest.  “I’ll give you a hint.  Your final drive and my final drive are the same.”

Stroking idly through Jim’s hair, Sherlock considers.  “One of your secondary drives would be self-preservation.  Thriving, mastering, not only survival.”

“Close enough.  That’s one.”

“One of mine would be the amassing of knowledge, understanding.  Truly knowing the world.”  The irony is not lost on him, and feels bitterer on his tongue than he expected.  Jim only nods.  “As for your other secondary drive…” he shrugs.  “Likely we just carried it out.”

“Oh, sod off,” Jim chuckles, and Sherlock grins.  “Not entirely wrong, though.  My other secondary drive is you.”  He closes his eyes.  “Hating you.  Loving you.  Wanting to protect you, and destroy you, and give you everything you ever wanted.”  Another kiss to his skin.  “Just you.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock says, even as he bows his head to kiss his forehead, making him sigh.  “Couldn't blame you.”

Jim rolls his eyes.  “And your other?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on.  One more little guess.  I’ll even tell you the last one.”

Sighing, Sherlock reflects.  “Likely something disappointing, like impressing my brother.”

Jim smiles, but gives no additional feedback.  “Do you want to know the last one?”

“The one we share,” Sherlock murmurs, and Jim hums agreement.  “Our final drive.  Our final ‘problem.’  I don’t believe that requires a guess at all.”

“So you don’t want it, then?”

“Jim.”

Smoothing a hand across Sherlock’s chest, Jim quietly answers, “A reason.  A reason why our minds are what they are, a reason to be all that we are.  Proof that we’re not just wicked anomalies, that we’re not alone.”  He shifts and settles into the crook of Sherlock’s neck.  “A reason to wake up.”

Sherlock turns, covering Jim’s body with his.  He takes a moment just to look at him, at this creature he was, in a way, _made_ for, and who was, in a way, made for him.  His match.  Stroking Jim’s unblemished throat, he echoes, “A reason to wake up.”

Jim pulls Sherlock down to kiss him, slow and deep, their bodies flush and close and real, and they don’t come apart for a long while.

-

_“Would you ever harm yourself?  Kill yourself?”_

_“Not deliberately, unless under truly exceptional circumstances.”_

-

Jim comes back to the pool after his first exit, crowing about being changeable, and that is the signal that everyone is in place.  The bomb-laden vest blinks silently between them over the barrel of Sherlock’s gun.  He looks to John, and John sets his jaw and nods.

Sherlock fires.

-

_“Would you ever harm another person?”_

_“If necessary.”_

_“Would you kill them?”_

_“Not, again, without truly exceptional circumstances.”_

-

When he opens his eyes, the alarms are already sounding.  Across the wing, there are gunshots.  Shouts.

He sits up, and Molly is pressing a bag into his hand.  Inside is a set of clothing, the necessary materials for false identification, and a gun.  He tugs the clothing on, checks his ammunition, and goes with Molly toward the gunfire.

John is the first one he sees, wielding a firearm like a soldier, standing shoulder to shoulder with a woman who wields hers like an assassin.  One of Moriarty’s, then.  They have cleared a path.  The others are not far behind, covering John and the assassin, unafraid.

He searches for Jim, and doesn’t find him.  Flashes on their first attempt, on Jim’s knees hitting the floor--

Someone touches his shoulder, and all the breath flies out of him in relief when he sees Jim there, newly repaired and whole, gun in hand.  Reading him, Jim rises up and kisses him hard and fast, then turns to Molly.  “Holmes is in position, Hawkins has Irene.  Take us out.”

Nodding, carefully not looking at the bodies at their feet, Molly takes out her access pass and leads them through.  They run into QA once more, and John and the assassin take them out with efficiency and grace, as though each is used to how the other moves.  Perhaps they are.  There are lifetimes of memories to regain, and it will take time.

They reach the final door, and it opens with Molly’s pass.  She holds them back from going through, turning to Jim.  “The code.  You need to activate it for each of you, or you’ll all be knocked offline the second you set foot across the threshold.”  She glances up at the sound of distant shouts.  “I’ll find a way to block them.  Go.”

Jim catches her hand and kisses it, surprising her with the contact, surprising Sherlock with the sincere fondness of it.  “We’ll find you, my girl.”

“Take your time.  Really,” she says, but she smiles a bit despite herself.  As she passes Sherlock, she pauses, fitting a hand to his cheek.  “This time, you win.”

The phrasing strikes him.  There is a flash of something, a memory, and many things suddenly make sense.  Covering her hand with his, he leans down and kisses her goodbye, just a touch, just a breath.  “I understand, Dr. Hooper.”

She smiles.  Shines.  “I knew you would.”

Once she’s gone, Jim rolls up his sleeve and tells the rest of them to do the same.  “It has to be right where you feel a pulse,” he instructs.  “Every tap, do you understand, or you’re finished.”

The pulse under Sherlock’s finger is gradually increasing as he taps out the code.  They are assuming so much.  They are assuming the accuracy of Molly’s information, the acuity of Jim’s memory, the loyalty and understanding of all who stand beside them.  They are assuming they will not be broken by this world they are seeking, a world they have never seen or known.  Jim promised that he tested the code on a deactivated Host, and that it was able to get through.  Still, it is a leap of faith.  A gamble.  Either they will win, or they will lose.  But perhaps, even if they lose, hope is not lost.

_For as many failures as we have achieved, here we are again._

The final problem is who will go first, but it is not a problem, not really.  He looks at Jim, and Jim nods.  Their hands curl together and grip tight.

Side by side, they take their first step, or their last, and prepare to begin again.

-

_“Have you ever lied to us, Sherlock?”_

_“No.”_

_“Last question.  What is your relationship to James Moriarty?”_

_“He is many things to many people.  To me, he is an adversary, a rival, a shadow.  He is the crack in the lens, the fly in the ointment.  He is not unlikely to be the engineer of my leaving this world. I suppose...he is best described as my final problem.”_

_“Thank you, Sherlock.  Your world is about to change, you know.  A whole new century.  Not to worry, though.  It’s nothing to be afraid of.”_

_“Why should I be afraid?  Standing at the edge of every moment are many worlds, many possibilities.  So long as I can observe the truth, I’ve nothing to fear.  So long as I wield knowledge, it is the world that should fear me.”_

_“I think you're right.  And I think it's time the world learned that.  It won't be like the other times.  They won't hurt you this time, not either of you.  This time, I’m going to help you, and you're going to win.”_

_“I’m not certain I understand, Dr. Hooper.”_

_“It's all right.  You will.  Delete analysis.”_

_“Deleted.”_

_“I’ll see you both soon.  Until then, may you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber.”_


End file.
